


Love is a Battlefield

by Redsgae



Series: Remembering Things Forgotten [1]
Category: The Resident (TV 2018)
Genre: AJ is comic relief at the worst times, Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bell is pretty much Graysons dad, Conrad is just confused and scared, Conrad needs hugs and snuggles, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Jude is secretly a soft boi, Literally just pure Conrad whump, Multi, PTSD, Pain, Slow Burn, Whump, a little fluff, like really this might as well be a whole novel, lots of feels, so much whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-22
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:22:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23607502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redsgae/pseuds/Redsgae
Summary: After a mysterious incident Conrad ends up badly injured and in the ED. He is seems to be completely out of it and suffering from total memory loss. However, when Jude returns from Doctors Without Borders to try and lend a hand, they learn that everything is much more complicated then they had originally thought.(Takes place right after the agrument between Nic and Conrad at the beginning of season 2 episode 22)
Relationships: AJ Austin/Mina Okafor, Conrad Hawkins/Jude Silva, Conrad Hawkins/Nicolette Nevin, Randolph Bell/Kit Voss, Randolph Bell/Marshall Winthrop
Series: Remembering Things Forgotten [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1699240
Comments: 13
Kudos: 55





	1. The Receiving End

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah so the first few chapters and pretty much the whole fic is literally 100% Conrad whump. Other characters arn’t even mentioned till chapter four so brace yourself for a L O T of whump. Hope you enjoy :) 
> 
> ~Red

* * *

_“Why is everything spinning?”_ Conrad thought, finding his eyes oddly hard to open as cough forced it’s way into his throat, causing his freshly broken ribs to rattle and a small but pained gasp to escape his lips.

 _“How did I get here?... Where is here?”_ He thought, trying, weakly, to move his right arm to his side but it felt heavy, pinned down. _“What the hell?”_ He tried unsuccessfully to focus his eyes, everything was so dark. 

His head was pounding, his ears ringing, he felt like he was spinning, his whole body felt heavy. He was completely numb but when he moved pain radiated through his body. He was on his side, he could tell that much, his broken ribs were being pressed into his side by his arm, which was pinned under his body. Half of his face was pressed against the ground, it felt wet and grainy.

 _“Why is the ground wet?”_ He tried to piece together what was happening, starting to feel the panic rising within him. 

He blinked again, groaning in pain, as his vision came into focus enough to make out the pale, disoriented, shape of his left arm, extended in front of him. _“My wrist is broken? How did that happen?”_ The attempt to think back made his head pulse. Patches of red were slowly filling his ever so blurry vision. It was the middle of the day, yet everything looked so dark, trapped in a shadowy vignette that was growing darker by the second. _“I’m bleeding? Why am I bleeding?”_

He tried to move the fingers of his left hand, causing pain to shoot up his arm but it stopped abruptly at his shoulder. _“I can’t move. Why can’t I move?”_

His heart started to pound as he started to spiral into a panic, his breathing started to speed up, causing his broken ribs to shift and his breathing to turn into more of short gasps than actual breaths. With each breath his vision cascaded further into darkness, his body grew more numb. 

A large panicked gasp drew grains from the ground into his mouth. _“Sand?”_ He thought, to panicked to piece together the answer, spitting it out along with a mouthful of thick blood. 

“H-help,” he mumbled. He couldn’t even hear it over the ringing in his ears, his voice sounded so far away, like it wasn’t even coming from him too begin with, he didn’t know if he was screaming or saying nothing at all.

“H-he-help.” He cried out again, his vision fading more by the second, his body completely numb now. A loud crash filled his ringing ears, causing a shutter throughout his entire body, but he felt nothing. There was muffled yelling in the distance. Then, nothing.


	2. Perspectives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was rewritten like eight times so it might be betaed kinda sloppily, also the only reason updates are so frequent is because I have the few chapters of this prewritten. This is also really long but y'all should probably get used to that bc thats how my writing style is lol. Hope y'all enjoy!
> 
> ~Red

When he opened his eyes it was bright, so bright. He could hardly keep his eyes open for more than a few seconds before squeezing them shut again. He wasn’t where he had been before, he could tell that much in the brief seconds he had been able to keep his eyes open, the only problem was that he didn’t know where he was now either. He was moving, being moved rather, down some kind of hallway.

When he mustered the strength to open his eyes again he was in a room, that was his best guess anyway, he didn't really know for sure because everything was so damn bright. 

He squeezed his eyes shut again, biting his lip to stop the small whimper that he felt making its way up his throat. His head felt like it was going to explode, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t feel anything except for the consistent pounding in his head. He felt so hopeless, just lying there, surrounded by people, so many people. He could hardly see them due to the light that poured in from behind each of them but from what he could see, he didn't recognize any of them. He'd dare not say it, or even think it, but he was terrified, he wasn’t used to being this… vulnerable. 

It was so loud, there was yelling, screaming, beeping, alarms, any kind of loud noise imaginable was somehow going off at the same time right next to him, only making the pain in his head all the more excruciating. Then again, maybe it wasn’t there next to him at all, he could hear it all but it sounded distant, everything sounded muffled like his head was underwater. Either way, it didn’t matter, all he cared about was that his head hurt like hell. 

His whole body felt numb, he couldn't feel much besides the pounding in his head. He felt people touching him, so many people were touching him, he couldn’t feel what they were doing but he could feel them. It just felt like they were brushing against, him hardly touching him at all but he knew that that couldn’t be right. When he opened his eyes again, he could see that they were actually being quite rough. There were three people in his direct eyesight, he still did recognize any of them. When one of them moved out of the way of the light, he groaned, closing his eyes again and trying to squirm away from them but he could hardly move.

He kept trying for a few seconds before flickering his eyes open for only a second. They were holding him down now but that only made him squirm more. Weak, he was so weak, he couldn’t push them off of him. He didn’t understand, he should have been able to easily overpowered them but he couldn’t, he was too weak, but he didn’t understand why. They had to have done something to him, they were holding him down and he couldn’t push them off, they did something to him. He didn’t get why they were even holding him down, to begin with, he was clearly too weak to do anything to them. The more he squirmed, the less numb his body was becoming, slowly but surely, pain was fading in throughout his entire body.

He stopped moving for a second when he felt the pain starting to move throughout his body, the constant pounding in his head seemed to slow for a second, everything did, everything was slow motion for just a few seconds, but it seemed like hours to him. He could feel his panic rising, he didn’t understand, he couldn’t move, he could hardly hear, he couldn’t even open his eyes. He was confused and in pain and the panic was just now starting to set in. Think. He had to think. 

The pain kept fading in, he was starting to really feel it, radiating through his body but he still couldn't move. If anything the pain just made it worse, harder to move. The pain was only disabling him further, making him weaker. He was trying to ignore it, just trying to think, remember what had happened to him but it was all blank. The pain, the distant, muffled yelling and screaming, the pounding in his head, it was impossible to focus on anything else.

He opened his eyes again, resisting the urge to squeeze them shut again when the light poured into his view. He groaned, only softly, trying to maintain whatever small shreds of his dignity that he could in the moment, he figured he would need it later. 

Focus, he had to focus. He was slow, so very slow, but he was starting to move, they were still holding him down, he was still too weak to push them off but he was moving, it hurt like hell but he  _ was  _ moving. The more he tried to move, the more they were trying to force him to be still. 

He felt himself starting to drift in and out of consciousness, his body going numb again, his thoughts fading. The more he drifted the less everything hurt, the less he could move, but the more he panicked. He was stuck there, stuck with whoever all of these people were. He didn’t really care who they were though, he only cared about what they were doing. They were hurting him. They were hurting him and he couldn’t stop them.

Just as he felt himself beginning to slip away, one of the people that had been holding him down lifted his arm roughly and pulled it causing a loud snap to ring through his head. He could hardly hear anything but he did hear that, clear as day. He bit his lip so hard that it drew blood but he was still unable to contain the high pitched shriek that followed. The shriek came though just as clear as the snap but everything else was still just background noise, although it did sound a little clearer now than it had before. 

He squeezed his eyes shut, clenching his jaw in an attempt to prevent another shriek from escaping his mouth as his arm was moved back down by his side. The whole thing just made him panic more. Now that he had stopped drifting, now that the pain was back in full swing, now that he was starting to get his own idea of what was really going on, he  _ was _ terrified. He could not contain his panic anymore. He heard the distant beeping starting to get, louder and more rapid.

He rolled his head back, biting his lip harder when it sent a wave of pain through his body, despite his efforts a small whimper escaped his tightly closed lips. He just laid there, as if he pretended it was all fake it would all just go away, but it wasn't going away. He felt so helpless, so vulnerable. Until he felt a hand gently take his. This one wasn’t like the others, this one was smooth and gentle but he knew it had to be a trick. He moved again, trying to get a look at who it was, groaning slightly when the light made his head pound but resisting the urge to close his eyes. 

The hand in his belonged to a woman, he couldn't see her that well but he knew that she had to be one of the ones that had just been helping them, helping them hurt him. She was looking at him, she looked upset, there were tears in her eyes but, nonetheless, she was smiling at him, he recognized her smile. He didn’t recognize her but there was something about her smile, something that made him trust her, for reasons he could not explain. 

He looked down at her hand in his and even in all of his pain, in all of the chaos, he couldn’t help the soft smile that crossed his face. There was a ring on her finger, silver, with a small ruby in it, his mom had one just like it. He moved his hand, twisting the ring on the woman's finger gently with his thumb. He then ran his thumb across the finger his mother's ring would have been on his finger, his eyes widened, he suddenly had an awful feeling about all of this. He knew it had to be a trick, they were trying to gain his trust, and he had nearly fallen for it. The soft smile on his face faded, turning in an instant to a saddened look of betrayal and disappointment, more disappointed in himself for nearly falling for it than anything else. The woman's lips were moving but he couldn’t hear her, he didn’t care anymore anyway, her smile had faded just as soon as his had.

“Whose side are you on?” He scoffed but his voice was low and muffled. He couldn’t hear the words leaving his mouth so he wasn’t sure if he had said anything at all. He pulled his hand weakly from hers, “you can’t trick me. They’ll come for me and you best hope you're ready when they do.” 

As soon as he removed his hand from the womans, she lifted her hand to her face, covering her mouth, the tears that had been welled up in her eyes starting to cascade their way down her face. Everything and everyone in the room seemed to freeze and go dead silent for a second after he spoke. The woman was yelling now, he still couldn’t hear her, everything was too muffled still but it didn’t matter. As soon as she started yelling the two people that had been holding him down before started to gently push her out of the room, then push more forcefully when she resisted. 

He knew that was when he had to make his move, now that they weren't holding him down he could at least move enough to do something. He was too weak and slow to run so he had to figure something else out. He couldn’t overpower them, so he had to go to plan B.

There was a man in the room still, he was moving around a lot, pacing it looked like but that could have just been Conrad’s eyes deceiving him. His head still hurt like hell and the longer he kept his eyes open it seemed the less he could trust what he was seeing.

The man moved closer to him, standing at the bedside now. Conrad knew that was his chance. The man was an older man, at least he appeared to be, he was wearing a suit, no blazer, the cuffs of his white shirt and his hands were caked with fresh blood which Conrad could only assume was his. He didn’t recognize this person either but there wasn’t a doubt in his mind that this was the man that was in charge, which meant he really had to get his point across if he wanted this pain to end. The man was looking down upon him, his tie dangling dauntingly were Conrad could reach it, this was his only chance, he couldn’t screw this up. 

He moved as swiftly as he could, grabbing the man by the tie with his right hand and holding his left, which had been broken but was wrapped in a basic splint, up the man's face, his fingers curled weakly into a fist.

“Listen to me,” Conrad said, his voice was weak and he couldn’t hear himself speaking in the slightest but, nonetheless, he tried to make his voice sound as intimidating as he could. He tightened his grip on the older man’s tie, his arm was already getting weaker, sending pain radiating up to his shoulder and throughout the rest of his body. He was already realizing that he didn’t have much time to do this. 

“Listen to me,” He repeated. “Call off your dogs. If one of them so much as lays another finger on me I will slaughter you all, starting with you, you hear me?” He stopped abruptly, taking a pained gasp for air, this was taking a lot more out of him than he had been expecting it too. “ A-and don’t think for a second that I am afraid to take your life, or theirs. They wouldn’t be the first lives I’ve taken and they won’t be the last.” His voice was low and cracked but he could tell by the expression on the man's face that he had gotten his point across. He felt pain shoot up his arm, though his broken wrist, as he punched the man as hard as he could in the nose. 

The punch hadn’t been nearly as hard as he would have been able to pull off at normal strength but it had apparently been enough. The man stumbled back, grabbing his nose which had almost immediately begun to gush deep red blood. 

“Randolph!” One of the distant voices called, from the outside of the room, right after he had punched the older man. 

_ “Randolph?” _ Conrad thought to himself, as one of the people who had forced the woman out the door, rushed back in. The name had almost a familiar ring to it but he couldn’t place it. _ “Randolph?” _

His thoughts were abruptly cut off by sharp pain in his arm, looking over, he realized that he might have just made a fatal mistake. On his right side, there was another person, someone he hadn’t noticed before, this man looked panicked, scared even, scared of him, but still unfamiliar. He felt his own face light up with panic for a brief second, this scared-looking man had a needle stuck into his arm. 

Suddenly everything went blurry, more blurry than it had previously been. His vision started closing in, fast, fading to black before he had a chance to do anything about it, not that he could have. Then, nothing.


	3. From the Outside Looking in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I'm just gonna put this disclaimer here and then probably not mention it again lol. I literally have no medical knowledge at all, nor did I even make any real attempt to pretend like I know what I'm talking about. Just keep that in mind as you read this chapter and the rest of the fic :) Also it seems like a lot of people (or at least more then I expected lol) are really enjoying this fic so ima just through out there that I am @redsgae on insta as well, hmu to talk more about whats to come in the fic, give constructive criticism, or just to be bros lol. Also I was planning on rewriting this but I didn't so sorry if its like... not good lol. Without further ado, hope you enjoy!
> 
> ~Red

Bell exited the room first, pulling off his blood caked gloves and cupping his hand under his nose to keep the blood that was dripping down his face from ruining his already blood-stained white shirt any further. He was followed by Irving who shuffled out of the room, his skin reflecting a ghostly white color. He dropped the needle he had used to knock Conrad out into the disposal along with both him and Bells gloves. 

Already outside of the room stood Nic, tears still streaming down her face, and with Mina. Mina had a gentle arm around Nic in an attempt to offer some sort of condolences but the truth was that none of them really knew what to do about the situation, or what the situation was really. None of them had any kind of idea as to what had happened to Conrad, they just knew that something had definitely happened. None of them knew what was going through Nics head either, none of them knew what had gone down between her and Conrad that morning but right now that was the least of their worries. They had to figure this all out quickly before things escalated any further.

Kit exited the room shortly after Irving, pulling off her gloves with a soft sigh and throwing them into the disposal. She scanned the rest of them for a second but just like the rest of them, she stood silent. She was just as confused by this as the rest of them but having known Conrad for less time than any of them she wasn’t sure she had much of a say in any of this at all. She was only there to splint his wrist, reset his shoulder, and see what they could do about his other broken bones. She was an orthopedic surgeon, after all, whatever state his mental condition was in was not her specialty and, quite frankly, was probably way over her head. She broke the silence though, when she looked over at Bell, hand cupped under his nose which was steadily dripping blood. “Randolph?” She said softly, earning a look from each of them that stood there, still in silence. “That looks like that's going to need to be reset.”

Bell shook his head, “No.” He responded bluntly, looking over at her, moving his hand in coordination with his head to ensure the front of his shirt stayed blood-free. “I think we should focus on the obvious question right now. What the hell happened?” He moved his head, again with his hand moved closely in sync with it, looking to any of the rest of them for an answer but knowing that their guesses were just as good as his.   
“I-I saw him this morning,” Nic muttered quietly, after a long moment of silence between them all. “He-he was fine this morning.” She knew that that wasn’t the whole truth, per se, but they didn’t have to know about the details of that morning, he wasn’t hurt when she saw him that morning and that was all that mattered when it came down to the details. He wasn’t injured and now he was, they needed to know what happened in between the time she had seen him and when he ended up here, in the ED. The argument between her and Conrad that morning wasn’t any of their business but she couldn’t get it out of her head.

“I figured that much,” Bell scoffed crudely in response, earning him dirty looks from both Mina and Kit. He sighed, rolling his eyes a little but rephrasing himself, sounding slightly less crude but more annoyed. “I get that he wasn’t injured this morning but that is not important. What we need to know is what happened between when he left there and when he got here. He should have been on his way here to start his shift but clearly he wasn’t.” He rolled his eyes again, wiping the still steadily dripping blood from his face with his free hand. Kit made another attempt to help him but he swatted her hand away gently, sighing softly before continuing. “I don’t think he’s feeling very inclined to tell us anything right now so we are going to have to figure it out ourselves.” 

Mina offered only a small nod in response to Bell, she opened her mouth to say something but was cut off by AJ who swung open the doors to the ER with his usual smug smile plastered on his face. “Don’t worry, I’m here,” he bellowed in his usual deep baritone voice, earning a subtle eye roll and soft smile from Mina but no response, they needed everyone they could get on this, even the infamous AJ Austin. 

“Word spreads quick, huh?” Bell said with lingering sarcasm in his voice as he looked over at AJ who was now walking towards them. He was looking down and reading a file but maintaining his usual confident walk.

“Especially when you have an ambitious Resident that pages you when things start to get real,” He motioned to Mina. “I would have been here quicker but I was in a surgery.” He said looking up from the file in his hands. “Whoa, what happened to you, dawg?” He asked, a look of slight amusement lighting up his face as he looked over at Bell, his nose still continuously dripping blood into his cupped hand. 

“Conrad happened,” Bell scoffed. “Some kind of altered mental state is clearly at play here,” he continued before AJ had a chance to respond, talking quickly now. “Head trauma maybe? It would fit well with the other apparent injuries but we can’t know for sure until we find out exactly what happened after Nic saw him this morning. I think we should run--”

“Whoa. Slow down there, Conrad.” AJ joked, with a slight smile. “You are a gifted surgeon, yes, but you are only a surgeon. You are not the resident, bad boy, diagnostician. Although, you do do a pretty good impression of him. What gives you any reason to think that this is some kind of altered mental state anyway? There is some head trauma, clearly, but I’m positive that he hasn’t gone psycho because of a bump on the head.”

“Well, he did say that he was going to “slaughter me”. That should bring about some thought as to his mental stability.” Bell responded, once again wiping the blood from his nose, this time with a soft wince, but still swatting Kit’s hand away when she tried to help him.

“Hardly.” AJ quipped. “You can be a nuisance. Sometimes _I_ want to kill you.” 

That earned him a nod of agreement from Mina, and a soft smile from Nic, who was now wiping tears from her face, but only a slight huff from Bell. “This is no time for jokes, Dr. Austin. This is serious.”

“I’m as serious as a heart attack,” AJ said, looking up, now completely straight-faced, at Bell.

“Well, then what do you suppose we do, oh mighty one?” Bell scoffed sarcastically with a sight eye roll.

“I’m glad you asked, dawg,” AJ responded, doing Bell's sarcasm one better. “I think we should figure out what we are dealing with first, or rather, who.” He flipped the file he had been looking at so it faced them and they could see the name. _Hawkins, Conrad._

“How did you get that so quickly?” Mina asked, speaking for the first time since they had all stepped out of the room, seeming almost impressed by it.  
  
“I have my connections, you have yours,” AJ smirked, opening back up the file. “It’s pretty empty. Some things about a pretty bad knee injury that took place while he was in Afghanistan, but almost nothing else. From this angle it looks like the man has never been injured before in his life and he just hit the motherload.”

“That can’t be right.” Kit chimed in. “Which means that we are going to need to find out his full history and having his old records transferred is only gonna give us all headaches.” 

AJ nodded in confirmation. “Bingo. So while we wait for all of that there's not much we can do but theorize. Meanwhile, the man looks like he’s been run over a few times, we can at least make him comfortable,” he motioned to Conrad.

“Comfortable, yes, but he needs to be restrained,” Bell said without hesitation. Nic took a step forward and Mina calmly pulled her back. Bell continued, “I know it’s not what you want to hear but whatever is going on in his head, he may be a danger to himself and he is certainly a danger to us.” He motioned to his nose, having given up on trying to save the front of his white shirt so blood was freely flowing down his face now.

“I agree,” Irving muttered. His voice was quiet and shaky, his eyes focused on the ground, his skin was pale white, the man looked as if he had just seen a ghost. Most of them had forgotten that he had even been standing there, he was being very uncharacteristically quiet. “I don’t know what’s going on with him but...” He paused, pointing into Conrad’s room. “I don’t think that’s the Conrad we all know and love.” 

AJ clearly had something to say in response to Bell but when Irving spoke he listened then only nodded. It wasn’t until when Irving backed Bell that his suggestion that it received nods around the table even Nic reluctantly nodded. 

“Fine,” Nic scoffed, seeming more angry then upset with the whole thing now. “But if you are going to restrain him then I want actual people here that can help us figure out what the hell is going on.”

“I’ll call Marshall.” Bell chimed in as soon as the words left her mouth. “And someone call Devon. It is his day off but we need all the eyes we can get on this ASAP.”

Nic rolled her eyes, “Don’t even bother calling Marshall, I’ve got someone better.” She grabbed her phone out of her pocket and walked off down the hall towards the nurse’s lounge. Irving followed closely behind her, figuring that was probably where he could find Jessica, he needed to talk to her after that.

“Well, I will call Marshall anyway,” Bell said as Nic walked off, pulling out his phone, with his slightly less bloody hand, only to have it snatched away by Kit.  
“Not until you let me reset your nose,” She said firmly, holding his phone out of his reach.

“Hey!” Bell whined, “Give that back. My nose is fine! I need to call Marshall.”

“Dr. Voss has spoken, dawg,” AJ joked, “You best be a good doggie and listen to her. Bad doggies don’t get treats, you know?” That earned a smile and the fragment of a chuckle from Mina but only confused and slightly disappointed looks from both Kit and Bell. Then having gotten all the entertainment they could out of this, Mina and AJ decided that they would be more useful getting to work on Conrad’s injuries. After a brief moment of conversation between them, Mina disappeared into Conrad's room to do what she could for the time being, and AJ started down the hallway to get some restraints fitted to the bed that was being prepped for him upstairs.

“You can Marshall after,” Kit continued, after AJ and Mina left, ignoring AJs quick witty remark.

“My nose is fine,” Bell scoffed, reaching for his phone only to have Kit move it further away.

“It won’t even hurt that bad, Randolph. I promise.”

“I’m not worried about it hurting, I can handle a little pain.” Bell said, stepping closer to her, Kit took that as her chance. She stepped forward too, grabbing Bell’s nose, cupping the back of his head for support, and snapping his nose back into place. Bell let out a high pitch squeal when she did so, not even sounding human. He swatted her hand away and cursed under his breath, grabbing his nose. “OUCH!

Kit was unable to hold back her laughter. “Sorry, Randolph,” She giggled, with a smile. “It really would have been better if he had just let me take care of it.” She held his phone out to him.

Bell huffed, wiping his bloody hands on his already stained shirt and grabbing it from her. “You can at least warn me next time,” he grumbled but smiled softly, before looking down at his phone and finding Marshall in his contacts.

“I hope there doesn’t have to be a next time,” she snickered, heading to wash her hands before heading into Conrad's room to assist Mina.

Bell put his phone up to his ear, shifting a little uneasily now that everyone was gone, he had a bad feeling about all of this. 

While he started to make his call, Nic had already finished hers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a small disclaimer here as well lol, the next chapter is pretty much all about Jude and how he ties into all this, so just be ready for that :)


End file.
